John Brinkman on form design

Updated Accessibility Checker

I recently got some feedback that the accessibility checker I posted for Designer would fail for some forms.

I have updated the script to handle the condition that was causing it to fail. The new version is in the updated Accessibility.zip download. This time I also included the mxml source used to create the SWF dialog — just in case you want to customize it for your own use.

Meanwhile, I also added a check for a new error condition:
"Invalid next node reference: <ref>"

This error will appear in the case where the markup generated for node traversal contains an invalid SOM reference.

If you’re using this checker and have any ideas for improvement, please let me know. It’s a high priority for us to enable customers to create accessible content.

Usage notes

A couple more notes about the checker, and macros in general:

When a macro issues a message, the message appears in the log tab of Designer. If the macro script fails for some reason, this is also where the failure message will appear

With the very latest Acrobat update, you might find that the report PDF gets launched with a yellow bar warning. The only way to get past this right now is to turn off enhanced security In Reader/Acrobat. Obviously we’ll have to figure out a better solution if/when this capability makes its way to a supported product feature.